Colombia recovers electricity service after 3-hour blackout
After an over three-hour blackout due to technical failures in the electric networks, 80 percent of Colombia recovered the electricity service Thursday, the power blackout had frozen market transactions and caused traffic chaos.

The Electricity Interconnection Company Manager Luis Alarcon said that due to failures in the Torca power station, north of Bogota, a dominoes-effect affected the electricity stations in 80 percent of the country, in the biggest blackout in the past years.

"Electricity will have to be reestablished slowly, as well as the system allows," said Alarcon, who added the blackout took place at 10:00 a.m. local time (1500 GMT).

Colombia's Defense minister Juan Manuel Santos said that although officials discarded the blackout was triggered by terrorist attacks, the security alarms were activated in sites vulnerable to possible attacks by illicit groups.

Police officials in Colombia's main cities reported the traffic-lights systems collapsed causing major traffic jams, and firemen rescued people trapped in elevators.

Colombia's Stock Market informed in a public release that it would stop transactions until the country returned to normal conditions.

The Colombian regions affected by the blackout were the central, northwest, northeast departments as well as all of this country's Caribbean coast.

It is expected that all Colombia will recover the electricity service throughout Thursday afternoon. The last such blackout in Colombia took place in 1985.